A History Lesson

The "house of concrete money", Margiela, will not have a creative director/designer replacing Mr. Margiela after his departure several months ago. Writes the wonderful Suzy Menkes in the IHT: "Ever since Karl Lagerfeld was tapped by Chanel in 1983, followed by John Galliano at Christian Dior in 1997, other storied houses have tried to fill the shoes of a deceased or departed creator. But as the design appointments become a revolving door at houses like Nina Ricci or Emanuel Ungaro, the replacement mechanism seems to have broken down."

This would be all very well and good if Margiela was producing collections worth looking at since Mr. Margiela's departure. Instead, the collections produced have been haphazard, amateurish, and resemble a 5 year old's science project. The "replacement mechanism" has worked many times, hm? Lanvin, Dior (I suppose), Dior homme, Jil Sander, Issey Miyake, Burberry, and so on. This replacement mechanism Mrs. Menkes speaks of is only broken because sub-par "designers" (a certain Ms. Lohan) and designers ill-suited for the house in question have been hired. This is a fault on the part of management.

I urge you, readers, to think back to a time before I was at Chanel. Yes, dear reader, there was a time! I was once only designing 275 collections a year, as opposed to the 300 when I started with Chanel. Anyway- Chanel was a snoring troll. It wasn't even a sleeping beauty- it was incredibly ugly. It had warts and it hadn't had a haircut in a decade and the dress it wore wasn't even couture. People has dismissed Chanel as something "of the past"- I kid you not! And how did this happen? Why, because Chanel was designed by a team. A committee.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, committees are for communists and democracies. Not for a dictatorship! Not for an auteur, such as myself, or such as Mr. Hitchcock.
I agree- collaboration is important, and I wouldn't be anywhere without my little old French seamstresses. But even they (of course they) would balk at the idea of this...democracy idea, or worse, this communism idea. It simply doesn't work. There's too many forms to fill, to many people to agree with. Do you know what's more effective than democracy? A guillotine. I have one sitting in my office, actually. It's very good for making deals. The French kings had the right idea, no?

"Mr. Margiela has Left The Building"

I was speaking to my elevator operator today, as I descended from the top floor of my penthouse to the bottom. I had a fitting.
"Did you see Margiela, Frank?"- which isn't a particularly French name, partially on account of Frank being a Bulgarian who wound up in New York years ago, until I decided he had a particular brilliance at pressing elevator buttons and installed him in Paris.
"I did. Martin came to this building after the show, actually. Drunk as an alcoholic whore at a bar...if you don't mind my language"
"Of course I don't. Whores are a necessary part of society, hm?"
"Quite. Anyway- Martin came here- drunk- upset."
"It was quite a show."
"Do you think the designers of the collection studied at Central St. Martins.."
"..Or Parsons?"
"Ha ha, exactly Monsuier Lagerfeld, exactly"
"Anyway- Martin, you know how he's always looked invisible?"
"Of course."
"Well- normally, the only way I know that Martin's in the elevator is that slight cough he always seems to have. And I actually saw him today!"
"Oh?"
"I saw almost all of him- parts of him were still invisible, but as he got out of the elevator, he became more and more visible until he resembled a tourist in a Bermuda shirt and socks with sandals on them"
"Remarkable."
"As he entered the bar, I heard someone say "Mr. Margiela has left the building".
"How clever of them!"
"Such is Mr. Beckett."
"I heard a rumor too- they're selling Margiela at Walmart now."
"Someone's got to buy it, no?"

Cheeseboard

This is the transcript of a conversation I had with my dear friend, Connie Wang.

Connie: Karl, darling, I'm having a cheeseboard!
Karl (that's me, so we'll refer to me as "me" now, without the quote marks): What's that?
Connie: Water. Diet Water.
Me: Oh, I thought it might've been food or something....you know, something that contains calories!
Connie: Karl!
Moi: What?
Connie: You've just proved that you don't trust me. Assuming that I'd eat something with Calories...
Me: Non, non, it's just that "cheese" in "cheeseboard" sounds like it contains something with calories.
Connie: HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME? I'm hurt...
Me: It was just a simple mistake, darling. Really..
Connie: You don't trust me do you...
Me: I've never heard of a brand of water called "Cheeseboard".
Connie: Do you even love me?
Me: Golly goose, these are some pretty hard-hitting questions.
Larry King: And with us on the show tonight is BOB DYLAN.
Bob Dylan: Man, we're talkin' 'bout a cheeseboard here. This ain't no protesty, hoity-toity game we got goin' on. Do you trust Connie, Karl? Do you trust this chick?
Me: How was I supposed to know...
Connie: OH KARL! THE FACT THAT YOU THOUGHT I'D EVEN CONSIDER EATING SOMETHING WITH CALORIES IS BAD ENOUGH! DON'T YOU KNOW ME BY NOW?
The Lounge Singer: If you don't know me by now...
Me: Connie, I just don't know. I didn't mean to upset you or anything.
Little voice in my head: Yes you did, you sociopath.
Other little voice in my head: You're just misunderstood.
2nd other little voice in my head: You don't even have voices in your head!
3rd other little voice my head: Non! Karl doesn't even need a little voice in his head!
2nd other little voice in my head: Oh...
[All the little voices in my head pop out of existences as they collectively realize that they can't exist]
Sound effect: [Pop!]
Little voice in my head: But we were talking before! I think therefore I am!
2nd little voice in my head: Ah! But are we thinking or are we really just a by-product of Karl's thoughts, and thus actually cannot think for ourselves?
3rd little voice in my head: Good god, are we actually making people think?
Little voice in my head: What sort of blog makes people think!
2nd little voice in my head: Hurry! Hurry! Post some pretty pictures and distract them from thought!
3rd little voice in my head: IT'S ALRIGHT BLOG LAND! YOU MAY GO BACK TO LOOKING AT PICTURES OF PEOPLE DRESSED UP NOW!
Typical fashion blog reader: Honey, thank the lord-almighty-Carine-Roitfeld for that.
Typical fashion blog reader's friend: Amen.
Typical fashion blog reader: Let's go read Karla.
Fashion blog reader's friend: YES, with a capital Margiela.
Typical fashion blog reader: Aw shucks, I love that Margiela-fella.
Fashion blog reader's friend: You betcha!
Typical fashion blog reader: I wonder if that picture-man has updated yet.
Fashion blog reader's friend: Oh you mean the one who posts pictures of men in suits?
Typical fashion blog reader: Yea-up.
Fashion blog reader: Yippie yie yay!
2nd little voice inside my head: [rolls eyes]
3rd little voice inside my head: And now you're bringing up the idea that we can roll our eyes even though we're defined as "voices"
Little voice inside my head: Let's just all kill ourselves.
2nd little voice inside my head: [BANG of gun]
3rd little voice inside my head: How come we're not dead?
Little voice inside my head: Whatever...
Connie: Uh, Karl?
Me: Yes dear?
Connie: You've been blank for like ten minutes...
Me: Oh....voices inside my head.....
Connie: NOW YOU'RE IGNORING ME! YOU ASSUME I'LL EAT FOOD AND THEN YOU IGNORE ME?!!! "VOICES INSIDE YOUR HEAD". YEAH RIGHT....
Tui man: Can we take that one?
Me: No, really, I do really have voices inside my head...
Connie: Ugh. Karl....
Girl Who Calls Everybody Lover: It's always foodtime somewhere in the world...
Me: I know, mon amour, I know. It sickens me to the core. The very core of my being. EVERY MORNING, I wake up and there...bang! The thought comes to me, hmm? The fact that PEOPLE ARE EATING FOOD, SOMEWHERE. I feel the need to vomit- but I haven't eaten in decades- so I sketch. And I sketch some more. And I sketch even more than that. And I try and get rid of this feeling inside of me.....this feeling that knows that somebody's eating. It could be your grandma; it could be Michelle Obama, it could be Anna...actually, no. But it could be some homeless guy in Italy. Every-damn-quilted-second there is somebody eating. I can't do anything about it. It just goes on and on and on, and people CONTINUE eating like they need it to survive or something...

Nowhere Man

In my last post, I was telling you about the place I live when I'm in New York. I like to think of myself as a musician that records in the studio when he is in New York- call it the "New York Sessions", but what he records is silence. Loyal Readers will be aware that I made a record of silence last year, but what I'm attempting above is what is sometimes called a metaphor. Apart from I'm not quite sure if it is a metaphor, as I really do have a studio in the apartment where I live. With a recording booth and everything. Metaphor is very childish anyway, like satire. Who's interested in satire these days? Nobody! For instance, if I said that I went down the street today and it rained hard, and then Martin Margiela smoked my sunglasses, and punched my pencil; I really mean that. That did happen today, in fact. This man who was dressed like a lonesome hobo just came up to me and smoked my sunglasses. They melted off my eyes, down my nose, until it looked like Miles Davis shot at them with his trumpet during his Jazz-Fusion period. In retort, I glared at him until the hobo-clothes returned to That Horrible Prada Woman's closet, and he was rather stark naked. Let me tell you- it was not City in the Sex.
After that he made a futile punch at the pencil, which ended up injuring his hand (which, by the way, is made out of different parts of different hands. Which leads onto my next point:)

Martin Margiela is a sick, sick man. What sort of man cuts off the body parts of other people and attaches it to themselves? I imagine Mr. Margiela in his little white-clad lab, surrounded by a dozen or so adoring assistants who only speak in the dialogue of Antwerp: "Reuse! Reuse! Ann D! Reuse!" (in fact, I love Antwerp. Or rather, I like it better than the other so-called "fashion schools". I'm occasionally asked to judge at their shows- the outfits generally end up as one of those "forwarded" emails sent around the Chanel offices to laugh at. The little old seamstresses are particularly fond of them. Anyway, I will see you there, Julie Anne. And your scarf.)
Where was I.....oh yes, I imagine Mr. Margiela dissecting different bodies who he has dug up from various graveyards..perhaps found vagabonds on the streets. And he attaches the new pieces to his own body; sewing them on in a Dr. Frankenstein-fashion. Robotic parts are so much better. What I heard- I was talking to my children's book agent- was that Renzo Rosso, the new Margiela owner got a bit freaked out by Margiela's, ah, body-cutting experiments; hence why Mr. Margiala isn't around the offices anymore (and hence why a Margiela collection isn't perverted anymore. A real shame, hm? If a collection's not perverted or chic, what's the point? I've always prided my collections on having a sense of perversion, with the occasional sense of chic.)

Anyway, I remembered that my house has a bathroom today when a model visited. We ventured into it together. I forgot that I never bothered to have anything installed in there: it's just a blank space. Told the model to do her "business" somewhere else. Went back into the recording studio and recorded nothing.